Book SummaryBehind The Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Behind The Beautiful Forevers

Behind the Beautiful Forevers is a nonfiction account of the lives of residents of a slum in Mumbai called Annawadi, which sat adjacent to the Mumbai International Airport. Katherine Boo, a U.S. journalist married to an Indian, spent four years learning the stories of Annawadi residents through reading public documents, conducting interviews, and observing people’s day-to-day lives. She tells the stories of real people—their names are unchanged—and how a globalized world affected them: Despite India experiencing a new era of wealth, opportunity, and increasing development, many people still struggled to survive day to day, even when working harder than ever.

Though governments can create policy to nurture the potential of their people, they sometimes just reinforce corruption instead, and people adapt to the system. In Annawadi, the poor tried to exploit one another to get ahead, and police and government officials exploited the poor, leaving the poor with little power and few resources. Nevertheless, many still hoped they could get ahead if they simply worked hard enough.

Part 1: The Residents of Annawadi

Annawadi, a half-acre slum, sprang up in 1991 during repairs to a runway of the Mumbai airport. The workers came from the state of Tamil Nadu and decided to stay in hopes they could get additional construction jobs. The land was swampy, and they worked to pack dry dirt into muddy areas to make it livable.

By 2008, Annawadi had 3,000 inhabitants. The slum had a sewage lagoon filled with garbage and pollutants. Airport construction workers also dumped waste there in the middle of the night. Some people living in the slum made so little money that they had to supplement their diet by catching rats and frogs living near the lagoon, or eating the grass that grew at its edges. People suffered air-pollution-related ailments, like asthma, as well as tuberculosis and other diseases.

In the Shadow of Wealth

A large concrete wall stood between the slum and main drive for the international terminal of the airport. On the wall, cheerful advertisements hawked luxury items to the overcity, or upper classes. One advertised Italian tiles with the slogan, “Beautiful Forever,” repeated over and over. Thus, the slum was located “Behind the Beautiful Forevers.”

Most people did work making cheap goods, like garlands for airport tourists or decorations for people’s car mirrors. Because globalization was generating new wealth in India, many people no longer felt limited by caste or religious affiliation and aspired to better jobs or living situations. However, full-time work and the stability it affords was increasingly hard to find.

As India modernized and became sensitive to the poor image created by the poverty of slums, there was periodically interest in razing Annawadi, but this had yet to come to fruition—a few huts were razed in 2001 and 2004, but most of the slum remained in place.

Abdul: Trash Seller

Abdul Hakim Husain was a teenager who belonged to one of the few Muslim families in Annawadi. From a young age, Abdul helped his family earn a living by buying recyclable materials and garbage from trash pickers and selling it to recyclers. Being adjacent to the airport meant trash was abundant, whether from the luxury hotels surrounding the airport or tossed along the road to the international terminal. The variety and volume of trash coming from the airport, hotels, and construction projects reflected a booming global economy.

The Husains were looked down on for being Muslim. Most of the slum’s residents were Hindu, and tensions between Hindus and Muslims span centuries. Even the family’s modest success as garbage sellers drew suspicion from their neighbors in the slum. Muslims often had trouble getting decent jobs, such as those of hotel workers, in Mumbai.

Zehrunisa: Abdul’s Mother

Abdul’s mother, Zehrunisa, had many obligations to her family and her neighbors. Her husband, Karam, had made a payment on land where he hoped to build a home in a Muslim community just outside of Mumbai. He saw the move as a chance to give his family a comfortable living without frequent exposure to luxury goods they couldn’t afford, like the fancy cars and clothes seen near the slum. But Zehrunisa wanted to continue living in Annawadi, having found some freedoms she wouldn’t likely have in a predominantly Muslim community. For example, she could more readily confront her husband about things that upset her, something that might be frowned upon by more conservative Muslims who didn’t view it as a woman’s place to do so. She negotiated with her husband to make their hut in Annawadi livable instead of continuing to invest in the land in Mumbai.

Abdul’s Helpers: Sunil and Kalu

Abdul purchased garbage from garbage pickers who lived in the slum, keeping it in a storage shed near his family’s hut. Two garbage pickers he worked with, Sunil and Kalu, embodied the plight facing young boys, especially trash pickers, in the slum.

Sunil

Sunil lost his mother early in his life, and his father had taken him to an orphanage. Sunil became a trash picker when he was kicked out of the orphanage at age 11 because the nuns didn’t want to care for older children. He returned to Annawadi and learned to work hard to provide for himself, selling anything he could. Trash picking was grueling work, and Sunil worried that the work had stunted his growth and he’d end up a small man like his father.

Oftentimes, work involved climbing in and out of dumpsters. Risks included getting gangrene, maggot-riddled wounds, and lice.

Kalu

Kalu was known for two things in the slum—working in a diamond factory and scavenging aluminum and other scrap metal, a lucrative prospect. Oftentimes, the industrial facilities that produced these materials had guards or tall fences with barbed wire. Despite these barriers, Kalu could make multiple trips over barbed wire fences in a...

Behind The Beautiful Forevers Summary Part 1: The Residents of Annawadi

Behind the Beautiful Forevers recounts the lives of residents of a slum in Mumbai called Annawadi, which sat adjacent to the Mumbai International Airport..

Katherine Boo, a U.S. journalist married to an Indian, spent four years learning the stories of Annawadi residents through reading public documents, conducting interviews, and observing people’s day-to-day lives. She tells the stories of real people—their names are unchanged—and how a globalized world affected them: Despite India experiencing a new era of wealth, opportunity, and increasing development, many people still struggled to survive day-to-day, even when working harder than ever.

In 1991, India began a period of “economic liberalization,” which led 100 million people out of poverty over time. And yet, Annawadi was founded the same year and persisted. Though governments can create policy to nurture the potential of their people, they sometimes just reinforce corruption instead, and people adapt to the system. The poor tried to exploit one another to get ahead, and police and government officials exploited the poor, leaving the poor with little power and few resources. Nevertheless, many still hoped they could get...

Shortform Exercise: The Effects of Globalization

Consider the effects of globalization, and global tourism specifically, on the poorest members of society.

Abdul, Sunil, and Kalu depended on income from the waste generated by wealthy visitors to the airport and surrounding area, like luxury hotels. What are some other ways that globalization in general or tourism in particular might impact the world’s poor?

Behind The Beautiful Forevers Summary Part 2: The Husains’ Conflict With Fatima

Abdul’s family soon began work on the renovations Zehrunisa wanted for their home. In the construction process, they upset Fatima, their next-door neighbor. How Fatima chose to retaliate ultimately drastically disrupted the life of the Husain family.

Hut Renovations

To make their hut more liveable, Zehrunisa and Karam planned to install Italian tiles like the ones advertised on the Beautiful Forever poster, a new shelf near her cooking area, and a small window to let out the cooking smoke.

Despite the constant threat of the authorities coming to raze the slum, no one thought there was anything wrong with the family making renovations to their hut. They knew that whenever the razing happened, the government planned to relocate families who had lived in the slum since 2000 to apartments, and they figured that families with more established huts stood a better chance of getting accepted into this program.

Before beginning the work, the family moved out trash and recyclables they were storing in their house, as well as a television they had bought on a payment plan and some other goods. Some of the children guarded the piles while the other children did the work.

Abdul...

Shortform Exercise: Evaluating Competition and Exploitation

Consider the competition and layers of exploitation affecting the Husains and Fatima.

Despite Zehrunisa’s efforts to connect in faith with Fatima’s family, the Husains couldn’t overcome Fatima’s rage at their home renovation project. How did envy or competitiveness shape the families’ relationship in that situation?

Behind The Beautiful Forevers Summary Part 3: Marriages and Deaths

Annawadi’s residents attempted to make a living, secure marriages for their children, and find opportunities to climb the social ladder. Their motivation to do so sometimes stemmed from trying to escape worse circumstances in economically depressed rural areas. But sometimes, they couldn’t overcome their challenges and suffered violent deaths or suicide.

In the rural area of Vidarbha, where Asha had grown up, drought was becoming more common, which was a major problem for farmers. Crops failed and farmers turned to loan officers to get funds to buy new seeds, taking on huge debts that they struggled to pay off. With no hope of ever paying off their debts, thousands of farmers committed suicide every year.

To address rural suicides, the government was working to implement some reforms. For example, they worked to compensate the families of farmers who had a family member commit suicide and tried to establish subsidized income for farmers.

But many people turned to cities like Mumbai for work. An estimated 500,000 people from rural India came to Mumbai each year. However, they weren’t always successful. One of Manju’s cousins came to Annawadi to find work, but after a...

Behind The Beautiful Forevers Summary Part 4: Recession and Trial

By 2008, the great recession had begun in the U.S. and started to affect the livelihoods of Annawadi residents in numerous ways. Meanwhile, the court began the trial of Kehkashan and Karam, but it was a long process.

Global Recession Felt in Annawadi

The U.S. recession affected the local economy of Annawadi in complex ways. As the U.S. stock market collapsed, and other markets lost value, it meant there was less money from foreign investors being channeled into development projects in India. This resulted in fewer construction jobs available at the airport as well as in related businesses like hotels and parking garages.

The price of scrap metal fell, too. This meant that trash pickers couldn’t earn as much for collecting the same kinds of materials. At first, the trash pickers thought things would pick up with the start of the tourist season. In November, Indians from abroad visited for the Hindu festival Diwali, people from the U.S. and Europe visited during December, and Chinese and Japanese tourists visited through January, producing more trash to collect and sort.

But around the same time that Annawadians started to feel the effects of the recession, terrorists...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on the Book

Contemplate some of the book's themes.

In the last part of the book, Annawadians deal with the effects of a global recession, indicated by a lack of jobs and a declining price of scrap metal. How does economic instability show up where you live? How is it similar or different from that of Annawadians?